The Permanent Frontier

Technic civilization has a permanent frontier. Le Matelot tells us that we (not everyone), "...sailing out among the stars...," are:

discoverers;
pioneers;
traders;
missionaries;
composers of epic and saga;
bolder than earlier generations;
ambitious;
individualistic;

- and that some have become:

greedy;
callous;
disregarding of the morrow;
violent;
bandits.

"Such is the nature of societies possessed of, and by, a frontier."
-Poul Anderson, INTRODUCTION: HIDING PLACE IN Anderson, The Van Rijn Method (Riverdale, NY, 2009), pp. 555-556 AT p. 555.

In an interstellar society, it would be possible to live permanently on the frontier, always moving ahead of the advancing wave of civilization, as if North America never reached the Pacific but receded to infinity. New kinds of natives would be encountered at every stage. In an almost uncharted sector of this galactic arm:

"'Our intelligence reports, interrogation of prisoners, evaluation of explorers' observations, and so on, all indicate that three or four different species in this region possess the hyperdrive. The Adderkops themselves aren't certain about all of them.'"
-"Hiding Place," pp. 557-609 AT p. 567.

So it must be like that all around the galaxy: many hyperdrive-possesssing species, interacting routinely with several other civilizations while merely detecting evidence of many more.

Van Rijn needs:

in civilized volumes of space, good managers and routineers;

for the bypassed, but as yet unexplored, regions within the boundaries of known space, trade pioneer crews;

for "'...the wild places...,'" innovators "'...what can meet wholly new problems in unholy new ways...'" ("Esau," p. 552)

A good pun on "wholly" and "holy."

We have found a new description of the Milky Way:

"...the sky was aswarm with small frosty fires, across blackness unclouded and endless. The Milky Way girdled it with cool silver, a nebula glowed faint and green, another galaxy spiraled on the mysterious edge of visibility."
-"Hiding Place," p. 599.

Recognizing stars that lie in the direction of Earth and Ramanujan, Torrance remembers "...blue Mount Gandhi." (pp. 598-599)